Saturday, 9 November 2013

Demystifying Food Safety Assurance

True mysteries pertain to realities more profound than the task of assuring the safety and quality of food.

Food safety quality assurance is not
complicated because hazard control is complicated; the assurance of food safety
is only made complicated because of various human distractions and malpractices. If the
industry wakes up to this realization, it can get on with the real business of
assuring food safety and succeed. A new day is here. You can now rise to the dawn of SSQA and refuse to be intimidated.

“It Says So Right Here” Intimidation:

When you are new to the field, even to some long-time practitioners,
the assurance of food safety can be intimidating. It gets worse when you run
across evaluators of your system who throw “the standard” or "compliance" books at you and major on minors in a temper tantrum fashion by simply insisting: “It says so
right here” without giving you a reasonable explanation of why “it says so right
here”. You need to recognize all temper tantrums and deal with them methodically but never lose your focus on the long established and developed measures for assuring the safety of food as it applies to your operation.

I agree that ensuring food safety is a never-ending task as it
should be. However, the task is not mystical or enigmatic. Being humanly
possible, practical food safety assurance techniques have long been developed
and successfully utilized in the industry. Adopted approaches in the assurance
of food safety need to be scientific, methodical, pragmatic, practical and consistent. The
approaches must also be efficient and effective. In all of these aspects, the industry has no
shortage of expertise.

Basic methods for controlling of the usual
hazards in food have been established from the days of food preservation alchemy. Many books have been written on food preservation that describe various processes including: fermentation, heat processing,
refrigeration, freezing, evaporation, dehydration, irradiation, sanitation, good hygiene practices, etc. There may
be the argument that, in more recent years, advances have been made in the
development of newer methodologies such as gas treatments, high pressure processing (HPP), the use
of ultra violet light, synthetic and natural anti-microbial preservative, etc.

A brief historical search shows that the most
predominantly used methods (pasteurization, HPP and irradiation) are not
completely new ideas:

Pasteurization:Nicolas Appert, the inventor of canning, and
Louis Pasteurare often credited with the now old knowledge that treating food
with heat could preserve it. The first commercial milk pasteurizers were
reportedly produced in 1882, using ahigh-temperature, short-time(HTST) process. The idea was of course known and tested before
1882.

HPP:Patterson, in a review published in the Journal
of Applied Microbiology, stated: “The idea of using high pressure in food
processing is not new. The first report of high pressure being used as a food
preservation method was byHite (1899). He reported that milk ‘kept sweet for longer’ after
a pressure treatment ofc.600 MPa for 1 h at room temperature.Hiteet al. (1914)also reported that while pressure could be used to
extend the shelf-life of fruits, it was less successful with vegetables.”

Irradiation:The publishedchronology of food irradiationby
theU. S. Environmental Protection Agency stated that, in 1905, scientists received patents for the use of ionizing
radiation to kill bacteria in food.

Almost all of the presumed “new” methodologies or
developments are based on the age-old knowledge that food-borne microbiological
contamination causes spoilage and/or illness. Microbiological contamination is,
of course, not the only hazard in food. Examples of the other hazards are
listed in the U.S. FSMA-HARPC proposal(PUBLIC
LAW 111–353—JAN. 4, 2011, 124 STAT. 3885 – Section 103).They include: chemical, physical, radiological,
natural toxins, pesticides, drug residues, decomposition, parasites, allergens,
unapproved food and color additives. Naturally occurring, unintentionally
introduced, intentionally introduced, etc.

As we have seen, microbiological hazards and even the
non-microbiological hazards are almost all (if not all) controlled through long
established methodologies and practices. The successful control of all food
hazards requires good practices (by humans) in the agricultural, primary
production, secondary manufacturing and delivery operations. Such good practices are not derived only from simply knowing the rules (i.e. the regulations and the audit scheme elements) without knowing the reasons behind the rules. A good knowledge of how to mitigate all applicable hazards is essential for key company personnel who must pass the knowledge of the related good practices to all personnel at all levels through on-going training programs.

So, with the support of SSQA-Based Programs, let’s get on
with the real business of assuring food safety. There are no food safety
mysteries with which we must contend if we stop being the detractors with our
numerous schemes to defraud one another. We have the knowledge and the means to
perform this task. We simply need the commitment along with a strong sense of
our moral obligation and social responsibility.

Please join the band of passionate
individuals.Join GCSE-Food & Health Protection and soar in the emerging era of productive collaboration. Together we must
do everything we can to ensure our protection and satisfaction as consumers: This
is theDAWN OF A NEW ERA.

In your operation or opinion, which of these ranks the highest as an area needing help from an external party?

As a consumer or user of food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices or cosmetics, how would you rank safety, availability and price in order of importance from left (most important) to right (least important)?